Women still striving for parity

Last fall new East Stroudsburg University President Marcia Welsh held a gala reception at her on-campus home just for women.

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Posted Apr. 9, 2013 at 12:01 AM

Posted Apr. 9, 2013 at 12:01 AM

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Last fall new East Stroudsburg University President Marcia Welsh held a gala reception at her on-campus home just for women.

She was celebrating local women who, like her, had achieved. She wanted to get better acquainted with women of all ages who were involved in the community, committed to their jobs and contributing to the betterment of Monroe County.

A different kind of celebration, in deadly earnest, took place last week 90 miles away in New York City. During the fourth annual "Women in the World" summit, held at Lincoln Center, Pakistani teen Malala Yousafzai spoke by video of her campaign to bring education to the girls and women in her country. Six months ago — a scant month before Welsh's reception — Taliban terrorists in Pakistan had shot the 15-year-old activist in the head and neck while she rode home on a school bus.

Malala was one of many high-profile women at the event. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was there. So was Susana Trimarco of Argentina, who campaigns against human sex trafficking. And Phiona Mutesi of Uganda, who rose from the slums of Kampala to win her nation's junior chess championship, and is looking for ways that this most intellectual game can mentor girls. Myriad other accomplished and determined women came together to support each other and champion the cause of women's rights and women's opportunities.

American women enjoy many avenues to participate alongside men across society, including in the workplace. Women here have many opportunities to achieve an education, strive for promotion, create products or run businesses. Welsh cited such opportunities at her reception last November, adding that the recent cherry on the cake was that voters had sent a record number of women to Congress in the Nov. 6 election. Among them were the 20 women going to the U.S. Senate, the most in its history.

U.S. women's status makes Malala's experience, and those of other vulnerable girls and women worldwide, all the more eye-opening. Last year in India, attackers on a public bus set upon a young woman university student in a gang rape that put her into a coma. She died two weeks later. Such attacks are not rare in that populous country. Elsewhere around the globe, women face violence, discrimination, forced prostitution, unsanitary child-bearing, poor medical services and other challenges almost unknown in America today.

So it's incumbent on those who have succeeded to help women elsewhere. ESU's Welsh was right to celebrate women's successes here — and also to remind women of how much they have left to do.

For millenia, societies everywhere have looked to women to raise children. Most now see that where women prosper, so do their families, their neighbors, their communities and their countries. Today, women 's opportunities help raise the whole world.